Hands-on in the wild: T-Mobile Touch Pro 2

The T-Mobile Touch Pro 2 has been on the shelves for a few days now and while I'm not sure of how the supply chains are in other cities, in the Birmingham, Ala., area T-Mobile stores inventory of the new phone is somewhat limited. It took three stores to find the Touch Pro 2 on display.

We hope to get our hands on a Touch Pro 2 soon and offer a more thorough review on this Windows Mobile phone. For now, follow the break to read our first impressions of the Touch Pro 2.

The T-Mobile Touch Pro 2 has a plastic feel to it and not as solid of a feel as the AT&T Fuze/Touch Pro. It doesn't feel cheap, but it is noticeably lighter than the Touch Pro/Fuze and lacks the "heft" the original has. Technically, the Fuze is lighter (5.8 ounces) than the Touch Pro 2 (6.61 ounces) and I can only guess that the larger, wider footprint of the Touch Pro 2 disperses the weight better.

The Touch Pro 2 is also noticeably larger than the Fuze/Touch Pro. The Fuze comes in at 4" (H)x 2" (W) x .7" (T) compared to the Touch Pro 2 that measures 4.59" x 2.36" x .68". Regardless of the size differences, the Touch Pro 2 felt good in the hand.

I was able to stretch the security cables enough to compare the Touch Pro 2 to the T-Mobile Dash and they are very comparable in size. The Touch Pro 2 is slightly narrower and obviously thicker than the Dash.

The sliding keyboard moves smoothly and screen rotation is a bit more responsive than it is on the Fuze. The tilt feature is also smooth but for now, I have to question the usefulness of this feature. The 3.6" screen is an improvement over the smaller screen of the Fuze/Touch Pro.

The keyboard is spaced out better than the Fuze/Touch Pro and the keys were very responsive. Button layout is nice but it felt odd not having a directional pad. However, choosing between a d-pad or larger screen the screen wins out.

All in all the I was impressed with the Touch Pro 2. TouchFLO 3D has also seen improvements over the original version that was released on the Touch Pro and Touch Diamond. While the Touch Pro 2 has a similar 528mhz processor, it felt more responsive, with a bit more zip to it, than the Fuze.